Wasteful Warriors beat Djibouti 2-0

[Posted 28 Nov 2011][By Beezsports Reporter]

Jet-leg affected Zimbabwe plunged into battle in their first match of Group B of the CECAFA tournament in Da-es-Salam against Djibout just an hour after touching down in Tanzania, and that might explain why strikers had left their scoring boots home, only managing a paltry 2-0 win against the lowest ranked nation in the tournament.

The Warriors, late replacements in the tournament, had to travel after all other teams had arrived and taken time to acclimatise to conditions in the searing heat of Dar-es-Salam. Due to delays on their way, the Warriors who left home on Friday only arrived on match day, an hour before kick-off.

On the field of play, the Warriors, as expected, dominated their opponents, but struggled to add to their earlier strike in the first half by Donald Ngoma.

Ngoma in particular was guilty of missing many clear chances in the match, and Norman Mapeza attempted to fix this by making three substitutions in the second half.

Qadr Amini, who had an outstanding game on Sunday, had a free-kick strike against the upright post in the first half, before making sure with his second freee-kick on 73 minutes to add to Zimbabwe's lone goal.

The Warriors will next meet Rwanda on Tuesday. The Amavubi shocked the hosts Tanzania 1-0 in the opening match of Group B on Friday.

Mapeza is looking forward to an improved performance from his team on Tuesday against a team that shocked them in the quarter-finals of the same tournament in 2009.

As the highest ranked team in the tournament, Zimbabwe is the team to beat and a loss to any team in this tournament will dent the profile of the Warriors and any prospects of a continued rise in Fifa World rankings in December.

The Warriors currently sit on position 70 in World rankings after a recovery from position 74, a position they dropped to from 66 after losing to Cape Verde, a team that was ranked lower than Zimbabwe prior to the final match of Group A of the 2012 AFCON qualifiers.

Thanks to that loss in Praia on 10 October, Zimbabwe are not at the 2012 AFCON finals to be hosted by Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, and now have to rebuild for the 2013 Afcon qualifiers and 2014 Fifa World Cup Brazil qualifiers next year.

Part of that rebuilding process is to take part in tournaments like the CECAFA with a developmental team that is not even a B side to the full strength Warriors.